"The poll shows that those who own smart TVs connected to the Internet actually spend less time accessing Internet content through their TV than those who do not own a smart TV."
This doesn't seem to make much sense. If one makes the logical assumption that those who don't own smart TVs spend no time accessing the internet through their smart TV (since they don't own one), then how do people who DO own smart TVs spend even less time accessing internet content through their smart TVs.
Group A spends zero time accessing internet through a smart TV (because they don't own one).
Group B spends less time than group A accessing internet through their smart TV.
How can you spend less than zero time engaged in an activity?

The smart TV isn't the only way to access the internet using a TV set, they are using some external box and a dumb panel to do so. If you watch Netflix Instant on a PS3, then there you go, you're accessing internet services without a smart TV.

I think it's an indication that the built-in feature isn't very well regarded, for whatever reason, be it a bad internal UI, poor coding, limited options or what have you. When I looked at getting a TV last month, whether it had smart TV features weren't even a consideration.Edited by JeffDM - 12/11/12 at 10:36am

I still don't get what people think this fictional set is going to be.

I love and use the Apple TV regularly. In fact, I've had one ever since it was first introduced in 2007. It's an excellent device. Small, cheap, feature rich and has a simple, elegant OS.

Are people thinking an Apple branded television set is going to be a regular TV with all this functionality built in? What more could Apple do? And what would it be to entice users to replace their current sets?

I hear a lot of talk that Apple needs to iron out content deals before they'd make a television set, but why? With the current Apple TV I can (and do) buy the shows and movies I want to see a la carte. Can anyone explain what is hoped to be different with an Apple branded television set? Cause it seems to me that we've got it all right now and it only costs users $100 to get in the game. So why all the fuss?

Are people thinking an Apple branded television set is going to be a regular TV with all this functionality built in? What more could Apple do? And what would it be to entice users to replace their current sets?

Here's one: they stop selling the box. You want the functionality at all, you buy the Apple TV set.

I hear a lot of talk that Apple needs to iron out content deals before they'd make a television set, but why? With the current Apple TV I can (and do) buy the shows and movies I want to see a la carte. Can anyone explain what is hoped to be different with an Apple branded television set?

Can't buy every show, isn't synchronous with broadcast, and is "too expensive", despite people then going out and dropping two Jacksons on a slow Blu-ray set of the same.

I'm working on an idea for how this could come together well and truly be revolutionary.

"The poll shows that those who own smart TVs connected to the Internet actually spend less time accessing Internet content through their TV than those who do not own a smart TV."
This doesn't seem to make much sense. If one makes the logical assumption that those who don't own smart TVs spend no time accessing the internet through their smart TV (since they don't own one), then how do people who DO own smart TVs spend even less time accessing internet content through their smart TVs.
Group A spends zero time accessing internet through a smart TV (because they don't own one).
Group B spends less time than group A accessing internet through their smart TV.
How can you spend less than zero time engaged in an activity?

I had the same reaction at first, until I remembered there are ways to access internet content on TV other than via the TV itself. AppleTV, for instance.

I bought a 55" Samsung almost a year ago and the picture on it is fabulous, nothing other than Samsungs own lineup has come close to trumping the TV that i currently have other than obscene new tech that isn't practical to buy yet (4k). My TV is not a "Smart TV" but why would i spend an extra 2-300 dollars on a TV with apps when i own an Xbox 360/PS3/Wii U and an Apple TV? Just owning my Apple TV with its Airplay capability makes owning a Smart TV pointless.

I have the same set-up and I am very happy. But if Apple brings out a TV it won't just be a screen with an aTV attached. Haven't we all learned by now that we should wait before declaring any rumored Apple product a 'fail'. I don't need a smart TV and from what I have seen in the stores I really don't want one, but I am very excited to see what Apple might bring to the table.

I still don't get what people think this fictional set is going to be.

I love and use the Apple TV regularly. In fact, I've had one ever since it was first introduced in 2007. It's an excellent device. Small, cheap, feature rich and has a simple, elegant OS.

Are people thinking an Apple branded television set is going to be a regular TV with all this functionality built in? What more could Apple do? And what would it be to entice users to replace their current sets?

I hear a lot of talk that Apple needs to iron out content deals before they'd make a television set, but why? With the current Apple TV I can (and do) buy the shows and movies I want to see a la carte. Can anyone explain what is hoped to be different with an Apple branded television set? Cause it seems to me that we've got it all right now and it only costs users $100 to get in the game. So why all the fuss?

Personally I think Apple will announce deals with major content creators. This may be unrealistic but either way I think Apple's aim will be to offer an alternative to a TV over cable or satellite (you will still be able to attach a box if you want). More and more providers are offering their subscribers the option to view content on-line. I can also see a situation where Apple makes deals with the cable providers whereby their online content is viewed through Apple's television devices.

Personally I think Apple will announce deals with major content creators. This may be unrealistic but either way I think Apple's aim will be to offer an alternative to a TV over cable or satellite (you will still be able to attach a box if you want). More and more providers are offering their subscribers the option to view content on-line. I can also see a situation where Apple makes deals with the cable providers whereby their online content is viewed through Apple's television devices.

I'm not trying to be contrary, but couldn't all that be done with the current $100 Apple TV device? Why do we need a special $1,000+ HDTV to do any of that?

Haven't we all learned by now that we should wait before declaring any rumored Apple product a 'fail'. I don't need a smart TV and from what I have seen in the stores I really don't want one, but I am very excited to see what Apple might bring to the table.

How true. Actually, people even put down the iPad after seeing the demo, before it was released. Apple lovers too.

I really look forward for them to release a TV set, even though I don't expect it. It will need to be the right combination of hardware / software / partnerships. The latter being most watched by people, as we all know they are very capable of doing the first two.

Here's one: they stop selling the box. You want the functionality at all, you buy the Apple TV set.

Can't buy every show, isn't synchronous with broadcast, and is "too expensive", despite people then going out and dropping two Jacksons on a slow Blu-ray set of the same.

I'm working on an idea for how this could come together well and truly be revolutionary.

You'll get no argument from me that having to wait a day after broadcast to view/purchase a TV show via Apple TV isn't the best situation, but that's something that could easily be added to the current Apple TV box.

I guess what I'm getting at is what is the hardware reason for an Apple branded HDTV? Because the software side is covered by the Apple TV box. An actual HDTV from Apple needs to bring more than just a software upgrade to the current Apple TV. No?

I've heard some people thinking about Siri and/or motion control being part of an Apple HDTV. Those sound pretty cool. But would it be enough to draw the masses? I tend to doubt that so I think Apple would have to bring something more hardware wise to the table. Because again, the current Apple TV can be (and has been) upgraded, plus it's not limited to only working with one brand of HDTV so it has a wide potential audience.

Isn't it possible that Apple would do both? A box for people who aren't in the market for a new TV and a TVfor those who are? There's always going to be someone in the market for a TV.

I REALLY hope so. The Apple TV box works with any HDTV on the market so it has a very wide audience. Covering both bases seems the best bet to my mind. I only question what an Apple branded HDTV could bring to the table that the current Apple TV can't. Why would the full fledged HDTV be more appealing than a $100 Apple TV?

I still don't get what people think this fictional set is going to be.

I love and use the Apple TV regularly. In fact, I've had one ever since it was first introduced in 2007. It's an excellent device. Small, cheap, feature rich and has a simple, elegant OS.

Are people thinking an Apple branded television set is going to be a regular TV with all this functionality built in? What more could Apple do? And what would it be to entice users to replace their current sets?

I hear a lot of talk that Apple needs to iron out content deals before they'd make a television set, but why? With the current Apple TV I can (and do) buy the shows and movies I want to see a la carte. Can anyone explain what is hoped to be different with an Apple branded television set? Cause it seems to me that we've got it all right now and it only costs users $100 to get in the game. So why all the fuss?

For most people, Apple TV can't replace a cable provider. I have DirecTV and an Apple TV. My dream is an Apple set top box that will allow me to select all the channels I want, including local, and pay only for those - not for the Hallmark channel, for example.

There is more to this than hardware; Jobs said he'd "cracked the code," he wasn't talking about hardware. Apple could have built that years ago.

I REALLY hope so. The Apple TV box works with any HDTV on the market so it has a very wide audience. Covering both bases seems the best bet to my mind. I only question what an Apple branded HDTV could bring to the table that the current Apple TV can't. Why would the full fledged HDTV be more appealing than a $100 Apple TV?

I agree. In my opinion, makes more sense to have a set top box connected to a larger Thunderbolt display. Like Mac Mini, basically.

Apple iOS products have about a 3-5 year life cycle, then they're no longer upgradable, and shortly thereafter not terribly useable.

Televisions have a 10-20 year life cycle. If I buy a TV today, I do not expect to replace it for at least 10 years, and possibly considerably longer. My oldest TV is in the kitchen, it's a CRT with a digital converter box and a 1st-gen hacked AppleTV (running through a component to VGA converter, since the TV has a VGA port), and it's nearly 20 years old. I have no plans to replace it as long as it functions. My newest TV is now about 5 years old, and was only purchased when lightning destroyed the previous living room TV (though I wasn't too upset, since I replaced a 50" front projection 3 gun with a 55" LCD). But given that it does 1080p, I'm not going to be replacing it anytime soon either.

Apple is MUCH more suited to building an external box than a television.

"The poll shows that those who own smart TVs connected to the Internet actually spend less time accessing Internet content through their TV than those who do not own a smart TV."
This doesn't seem to make much sense. If one makes the logical assumption that those who don't own smart TVs spend no time accessing the internet through their smart TV (since they don't own one), then how do people who DO own smart TVs spend even less time accessing internet content through their smart TVs.
Group A spends zero time accessing internet through a smart TV (because they don't own one).
Group B spends less time than group A accessing internet through their smart TV.
How can you spend less than zero time engaged in an activity?

I don't think that is how this works. Apple uses quality components to create their products, resulting in top notch stuff. Competition tries to make things cheap because they don't understand why people would pay for quality and therefor use inferior components. Resulting in crap products, but getting bigger market share because not everyone can afford more expensive products.
In the long run however, things might actually be cheaper if you buy premium over cheap.

You do realize that the components inside between an Apple product and their competitors are virtually the same right? As far as I can tell, they're all being supplied by the same sources. So I'm not really sure how you can really decern what's "quality" and what "inferior".

Apple iOS products have about a 3-5 year life cycle, then they're no longer upgradable, and shortly thereafter not terribly useable.

Mmm… no… They're just fine.

Quote:

Televisions have a 10-20 year life cycle.

Also, no. TWENTY years?! You would've replaced this sucker only six years ago?

You're right that televisions have much longer update cycles than all other modern consumer electronics, but you're still off by about 2-3x.

3-5 year old iDevices are not fine. I tried getting someones' email to work on a 3G iPhone. That's right, 4 year old smartphone. A basic thing, like email, didn't work because it was a .Mac account. Sorry, no iCloud for you on 4.3.2 or whatever iOS version it could run. Email worked fine before Apple started to change their config; not that the phone was incapable of doing a simple thing as email. Other email accounts work just fine.

--

I have a few friends who haven't bought a new TV because their 23 year old sets still work. And I must admit, the picture quality is vastly superior to the new flat screens. And I don't think it's because that they are B&O sets; I think it's because CRT is vastly superior to flatpanels.

I tried getting someones' email to work on a 3G iPhone. That's right, 4 year old smartphone. A basic thing, like email, didn't work because it was a .Mac account. Sorry, no iCloud for you on 4.3.2 or whatever iOS version it could run.

You do realize that the components inside between an Apple product and their competitors are virtually the same right? As far as I can tell, they're all being supplied by the same sources. So I'm not really sure how you can really decern what's "quality" and what "inferior".

They are indeed 'off the shelve' components, but not always the one competitors choose. There was a nice discussion on the topic of RAM over here

Guys, did anyone of you really pick up the 'cloud-based DVR' line? If Steve cracked it like I have in mind, then we can see another industry revolution/disruption coming up. It's not about the television. Well, for the hack of it, they finally placed iSight right behind the center of the screen.

Sure it will look nice. But margins are low. Unless you can offer incredible UX. E.g. Recording multiple programs running at the same time on multiple channels. Viewing your own selection of programs running this week (somewhere there will be a max unless premium, then unlimited) in your preferred order. Instant 'view all previous broadcasts of series'. 'Buy premium view for the movie your watching' (without the ads). Tell sell, order here, Siri voice confirmation (ehh, ehh), pay with ... (Fill in any creditcard company or iTunes). Siri tweets with automated program hashtags and Teleconferenceview shows with friends. Video lounge. Watching Korean soaps or Bollywoods with machine translated subtitles. And let's not forget... Your choice of thousands of channels worldwide with many rising amateur channels and concerts, sports or other live events. Obviously anyidevice and instantly start on another where you left off.

The price? Way below 1000. But it comes with subscription fees just like your cable provider. So you only need internet...

Although inevitable, no wonder that it takes a while for broadcast channels to step in... They must be petrified.

Meanwhile I am going to read paperbacks.Edited by cykz - 12/11/12 at 3:13pm

They aren't going to be the one's paying for it (still living off Mom & Dad)

They are very well off, considering the latter half of that age bracket would only be 3-5 years out of college.

They don't have any concept of a household budget yet and will just "charge it".

So I don't even look at those number because they are unrealistic. Look at the next age bracket and how much less the interest in paying a "premium" is. That is much more realistic in my mind.

If you're out of college and don't have kids, you likely have some amount of discretionary income. I think a realistic figure would need to account for more than the 20% premium used in the headline. Most television manufacturers leverage their own facilities and designs. Even then the margins aren't that high in most of them. It's likely that you'd have a much higher cost if Apple is trying to derive their typical margins from the unit, but the analysts are all over this because Apple's only hardware product here is a $99 box. They effectively have 0% of the television market, so with the right margins it presents the potential for growth in an area that is unlikely to cannibalize existing sales. It is consistent with Apple's focus on media consumption, so I don't see analysts or AI dropping it as a perpetual headline.

No, you're probably right. They're slow, sure, and they won't be compatible with everything, but they're not entirely useless, is all.

No no no! All I, or she, actually, wanted was her .Mac email to work. I definitely screwed up here, seeing these screendumps and not being able to configure it correctly myself. I tried all the tricks the internet showed me. P01 p02 p03 server et cetera. I didn't do a full restore / zap everything kind of thing, but I did really try to make it work. iFail!

I'm not trying to be contrary, but couldn't all that be done with the current $100 Apple TV device? Why do we need a special $1,000+ HDTV to do any of that?

It could all be done with the present or a future $100.- atv box just as everything iMac can be done with a much less expensive Apple Mini. But this is where the 'great debate' lies. One of the themes of the 'great debate' is the facetime or no face time question. Personally I believe if Apple brings out a big screen version of atv it will definitely feature FT. Another aspect is the sheer loveliness of a 50" Apple Television set.

I'm surprised at how many people spend a small fortune on a large TV. A good show is still a good show on a 32" screen and a bad one is still a bad one on an 80" screen. Bigger better picture quality won't improve the writing or change the fact that it was shot to look acceptable in 23". If anything a larger screen only amplifies what's wrong with most television programming.

Big sound is even less relevant so, unlike the majority it seems, I actually think a TV should have decent sound reproduction. 99% of the time it's a complete and total waste of electricity to pipe television programming through a separate surround sound receiver and speakers. If you watch a lot of movies then your percentage will differ from mine, but there are a lot of movies for which big sound is irrelevant too.

I do not want on demand programming. You can now lift your jaws off the floor.

A few years back I had a favourite show that my wife and I watched religiously. Then one season they changed the time slot and we could no longer watch. I could have bought a PVR or bought the episodes on iTunes, but couldn't justify spending the money. It was just television after all. A friend of mine bought the show so I now have access to all the episodes. I haven't watched a single one. There's simply no urgency to do it so it never makes it to the top of the list.

That urgency, the fact that I've only got one chance to see a broadcast episode in the correct sequence, is the only thing that pulls me away from life and gets me to devote an hour to sitting in front of the TV. In an on-demand TV universe I wouldn't watch anything.

I guess I am in the majority as I WON"T pay a premium for an Apple tv. I have a Mac Book Pro and a Mini, so why do I need an new tv? Just because it has the Apple logo? NO. I watch tv for tv's sake and none other. My 62" Samsung is getting a little long in the tooth, but I still gets wonderful 1080P images out of it, so why bother.

I guess I am in the majority as I WON'T pay a premium for an Apple phone. I have a Mac Book Pro and a Mini, so why do I need an new phone? Just because it has the Apple logo? NO. I use a phone for phone calls and none other. My Samsung is getting a little long in the tooth, but I still get wonderful phone calls out of it, so why bother.

I'm surprised at how many people spend a small fortune on a large TV. A good show is still a good show on a 32" screen and a bad one is still a bad one on an 80" screen. Bigger better picture quality won't improve the writing or change the fact that it was shot to look acceptable in 23". If anything a larger screen only amplifies what's wrong with most television programming.

False. The HDTV spec is designed for 1080p to be viewed at 1.6 times the diagonal size. So unless you are used to sitting 51" from your 32" screen you're sitting too far away to meet the SMPTE 30 spec (i.e. the picture quality it was shot for). Less important for soap operas, more important for movies.

For THX the recommended seating range for a 35" HDTV is 3.5' to 5.0' although at 5' you're pushing it (within the SMPTE 30 spec).

For a 60" HDTV (given that few are ponying $25K for the 80") the seating distance is between 6' and 9'...or more like what most US folks have in their living/family room.